Potter! In a Zoo?
by Noctis D. Crow
Summary: Harry abandons the wizarding world as he trains in his animagus form to better prepare for the coming backlash although he couldnt anticipate being caught by muggles and being thrown into a zoo where he becomes a friend to a zebra, giraffe, hippo, and lion. Rated T Harry/Alex eventually.


Harry growled under his breath as his prey escaped him yet again. He glanced down into the lake he stood next to and smirked at his form, he was a shadow wolf, though he looks like a normal wolf to muggles, so his form was covered in black fur. He kept his glowing green eyes and had a splash of red on each of his ankles. His back stood at three feet tall and when he stood he was six feet tall.

He crouched low into the grass and tensed with a feral grin when he felt something stick into his side. He looked at the small silver dot with a furred red tip and his vision started to blur. He could barely see the shape of two humans walking toward him and he let out what he hoped was a threatening growl. The last thing he heard was,

"I'm sure the Zoo will like this one."

* * *

When he came to it was to the loud noises of human chatter and the light of the sun against his fur. He groaned and pulled himself up in a sitting position so that he could glare heatedly at everyone who dared to pass him. He snarled at a kid that was prepared to throw something at him and watched in mild satisfaction as both the kid and its mother stopped staring at him. "Ya know it's not nice to snarl at them." Harry looked over his shoulder and saw a zebra looking at him with a smile as he leaned against the low fence.

He snorted at the zebra and sat down with a smirk, "Oh yeah? Who are _you_ to tell _me_ what to do?" He clawed the ground in thought as the zebra's smile faltered a bit as he looked at the sharp claws.

"My names Marty, tha's Gloria, Melman and Alex, my friends." Marty the zebra pointed to a hippo, giraffe, and lion wile Harry just nodded absentmindedly.

"Uh huh that's nice. My name is…Shade, yeah, call me Shade. So what's it like being stuck in a cage day in and day out?" Harry, now Shade, laid down on the ground and curled his tail tight around his side as he put his full attention on Marty.

"It's nice, we have food, water, friends, what more is there?" Marty leaned against the wall again as he came to understand that the dark wolf wouldn't shred him to pieces, "I mean sure it's boring at times, but we're safe here."

Shade nodded and laid his head on his front paws as he closed his eyes and listened to his surroundings. He heard Marty fall to all four hoofs and start walking away, "I might just stay for a while then." He heard Marty pause and he pulled his tail over his eyes to block out the light as exhaustion caught up to him. It wasn't easy to hunt three days straight while using magic to track his prey; after all he was human, well mostly human.

* * *

"Hey Shade wake up!" Shade growled in annoyance as Marty's voice shot through his unconscious mind and he forced his glowing green eyes to open and glare at the zebra.

"Do you have a death wish Zebra?" Shade stood and stretched ignoring the other three at the moment before walking over to the wall with a hint of annoyance in his step. As he reached the wall he pushed off the ground with his front paws and put them against the wall to lean in close with a growl, "What do you want?"

Marty ignored the growing danger and through an arm around Shades neck as he pointed to the other animals, "Guys this is Shade, he's new!" Gloria and Melman welcomed him happily as Shade noticed the lack of welcome from the lion, Alex. "Come on Alex, say hi!" Alex stayed a bit a ways and muttered a halfhearted hello and Shade could see the confusion on the others faces.

"We're both predators Zebra; of course the lion will be threatened by the wolf. After all I am a new predator animal so he's frightened that I will steal all of his little fans." Shade ended his statement with a sharp grinned statement before balancing himself and walking over to lean against the wall closest to the lion. "Isn't that right _Alex _the lion?" He gave a fanged smile and Alex backed away with a grimace.

"That might be a small part of it…maybe." Alex crossed his arms and looked away with a frown and Shade shrugged.

"Whatever it is Lion I'm not taking your fans, you can have them. I hate it when people stare at me and it makes my blood boil." Shade laid back down and curled against the wall with a yawn. He wasn't over the fact of how vicious his fans were when he was _human _so he didn't want to test out how obsessed fans could be now that he was a 'rare' species of wolf. He fell asleep to the other four having soft worded conversations and he curled in closer hoping that none of his nightmares will visit him on this night.

* * *

It was the fifth day of Shade's stay at the New York Zoo and he watched over the humans with narrowed eyes as they went about gawking at him and fawning over Alex. The people still loved the lion, but they became curious of him so he did everything he could to make them stop. He tried sitting still, sleeping, growling at them, he even charged the gate one time, but all that did was make them laugh it off as if he wasn't a threat. He paced the length of his new 'home' as he listened to the loud noise around him and watched everything from the corner of his eyes. Someone screamed and he turned in his cell and froze as his eyes landed on the three year old girl that somehow managed to get into his cage. He stopped pacing and turned to the child with narrowed eyes as he walked closer and ignored the screaming adults. He took a deep breath and almost laughed as he smelled traces of magic on the child and he shook his head and grinned. "Shade don't!" He ignored Marty's voice and opened his mouth lunging at the kid. Everyone either gasped or screamed and he chuckled around the kid's shirt as she giggled. He gently through her on his back and jumped over the wall and onto the ground below before letting the girl guide him through the parting crowd to her parents. Shade took another breath and could smell the magic on the parents as well so he put a temporary link on them.

'You should be proud that your kid has strong magic.' The parents started before smiling and the girl's mother walked over and picked up the girl from his back.

'Thank you young wolf, for not harming her and for bringing her back to us.' Shade nodded at the man and tensed as the zoo employees slowly surrounded them. "It's okay this type of wolf doesn't attack unless someone threatens them so he's okay." The employees were uncertain, but Shade solved the situation for them by simply turning around and calmly walking back to the cage by his own free will, after all, they couldn't really kill him.

"What was that about Shade?!" He ignored Marty's calls and went back to sleep wondering why the girl chose his cage out of all of them.

* * *

As the days turned to week and the weeks turned to months Shade slowly grew closer to the other four animals and even managed to get Alex to somewhat like him. They all tried to get him to say their names rather than what they were and Shade tried not to laugh as he now purposely called them by what they were just to aggravate them. Shade leaned against the wall and started to think about what he was going to get Marty for his birthday before finally deciding with a grin. He looked both ways before disappearing in the small underground cave the zoo employees had made him and disappeared with a near silent pop.

* * *

Noctis:...Meh

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